Owning a piece of the same homestead that my ancestors settled makes me a steward of this earth. Like my parents and grandparents, there are days when I am sweaty and exhausted from good honest work in the soil; there are days when I sit in my cushioned chair on the deck admiring the clouds. I am fortunate to have ”one foot in the city” and “one foot on the farm.”

One Foot

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Book Basket Reveals Affair With Books

It seems in my part of
the country, silent auctions of theme baskets are popular as a fundraiser.My church has held these for years, so each December;
the lobby is filled with baskets stuffed with goodies and members drift along
the line placing bids, the idea being that high bid wins the basket.

Books for Christmas

I’m not good at
thinking up clever ideas, but when my guild lady-friends gave me the
responsibility for our basket this year, I vowed to make a good try.I spent days in anxious thought and a
basketful of “reading” was my solution.

My immediate problem
was not knowing the reader’s choice of literature, but then I remembered my
childhood experiences with books.My
parents were not readers, but thank God for an older sister who told me
stories.At five we entered school and I
was reading in a few months.The
one-room schoolhouse I attended (common in rural communities) had no library,
so I raced through the graded readers as fast as possible.I do remember Dick and Jane but they were
present only fleetingly.

To provide supplemental
reading for students, the library in a nearby city developed a “book trunk”
program, whereby the school would receive a full trunk of 75-100 books a month
and students were given certificates for each five or ten books read.Perhaps that is where I learned to love books
of all kinds and levels of difficulty, for I read all the books in the trunk
and pridefully indicated to the teacher when it was time to get a new
trunk.It was just such an occasion that
led to the only sarcastic response I ever received from that teacher, a mild
but memorable event.

I loved reading.I hid under the bed covers with a flashlight
to read late at night.Books helped me
through a long and serious illness during my teen years.They relieved anxiety and invariably I tore
into a thick novel two days before finals every semester.I read self-help books through my troubled
times, poetry books through my romance stages, historical fiction to spice up
the boredom of factual accounts, and religious books to satisfy spiritual
hunger.I was a literature major and did
post-graduate degrees in reading.Odd
that until I began to think of all this, I didn’t even know I was addicted to
books!

Filling the “reading”
basket was much more fun than I expected.Although I don’t have a reading chair in the corner for myself, I think
that is a great idea, so I began with a nice warm throw to throw over the lap
or shoulders and some fuzzy socks to keep the feet warm.I found a wonderful book of devotions, a
lovely blank book with scriptures, and a book light.

Since the basket was
quickly favoring the female gender, I added the book Chocolat by Joanne
Harris and a mug with hot chocolate and tea. A pretty package of chocolates
included a gift certificate at the excellent used book store nearby.At the last minute I threw in a CD of quiet
music for relaxation and a sign that said “Shhh – I’m reading” on one side and “I’m
reading, please join me” on the other.

The basket being
complete, I sat down to admire it and suddenly remembered an article that
appeared in the newspaper recently.To
avoid the pressure of consumerism this Christmas the author suggested that one
limit giving to four items:

An
item you want

An
item you need

Something
to wear

And
something to read…………………

Maybe this is going to
be a good gift giving season after all!This was fun.